Dog with irritable bowel syndrome???

[emmah1979]

So Molly my cocker spaniel was fit and healthy until she turned 4 but since then she has developed some sort or irritable bowel problem. Approximately once a month she goes off her food, becomes very depressed, has a very gurgly tummy and diarrhea. This lasts for usually 48 hours and then, like someone has clicked a switch, she is suddenly bright and full of beans again and hungry! She is now 6 years old so this has been going on for 2 years.

Numerous trips to the vet during the first few bouts of the illness didn't reveal anything serious and it was put down to a sensitive stomach. I subsequently became a dog food 'expert' and changed her food from Bakers (apparently very bad) to Arden Grange biscuits (not so bad and hyperallergenic) and good quality food pouches (Nature's Choice, James Wellbeloved and Prestige).

The only other food she might get is freshly cooked chicken and rice during the first couple of days after she's been ill, raw mince every so often and occasionally some leftover meat from the sunday roast (but not pork as that makes her ill).

Nevertheless, regardless of how careful I am with her food she is still ill every month or so and there's nothing obvious in terms of food that seems to trigger it.

When she was in the vets the other day having her annual innoculations I mentioned to the vet how I had changed her diet and yet it didn't seem to help very much. The vet said that the illness was probably due to irritiable bowel syndrome rather than a specific food intolerance (although the diet helps). In other words she is always going to be prone to having these flare ups.

Does anyone else have experience of this type of illness with their dog and any tips that might help?

Other than a bad couple of days a month Molly is fit and healthy, I just feel so sorry for her when it flares up because she's so down in the dumps.

 

[KarynK]

There is more and more of this about and a lot of the blame must go to extremely poor quality feeds like Bakers, it is full of wheat colourants and other additives and that must be more than enough to make a carnivores gut go out on strike! They are just not designed to take that amount of complex carbs, they are meat eaters and yet in most foods there is more cereals than you would feed a horse, most of the companies use tricks to make their products sound better than they are!! If you are going to stick with processed foods I would start doing some homework on labels and how to read them. If she were mine she would be on raw but at the least I would start by making sure that you feed the best quality feed you can and no wheat or cereals at all.

 

[emmah1979]

Thank you.

I haven't fed Bakers for about 2 years now, since I found out how bad it was. In my limited knowledge Arden Grange seems a pretty good quality food and is hyperallergenic and wheat free. It's also not tested on animals (in a bad way), which I think some of the other more expensive brands are.

I have heard of the 'raw' diet and have a friend who followed it for her dogs. However, given my circumstances at the moment it's not convenient to try it. Where do you usually get your meat from and what type of meat do you feed?

 

[emmah1979]

Actually KarynK ignore my questions at the end of my last post. Just read the huge post all about the 'raw' diet so now up to speed

 

[ralph and maverick]

My parents have a CKCS who has IBS, she was on a special food from the vet but they have recently taken her back to the raw diet (v v slowly)
They have raw mince (never pork!) chicken wings, fruit and veg (pureed) liver, heart and tripe.
However the one with IBS does sometimes get a flare up(really runny poo, very quiet, and lethargic) and when she does have a flare up they give her a paste from the vet (sorry can't remember the name) which lines her stomach and also some sachets to go on her food (fortiflora I think)
The flare ups which luckily are not too often come on through no particular reason, although before she was spayed she use to have loads more flare ups and sometimes wouldn't eat for days!
However since being neutered seems to of made her more hungry and the flare ups are much less frequent

 

[5bs]

My westie has had ibs, for most of his life he is nine. He has flare ups and then we are ok again. He had a scan recently to check it hadn't turned into anything sinister. He also goes off his food, water, for twenty four hours, and has the most horrendous wind. When he is bad he has a daily buscapan, I have changed his diet, to, royal canine hypo allergenic, you can buy it dry and in tins, he has both. I sock the dry for half an hour in boiling water, and then add a small amount of the tinned, he has three small meals a day. He also has a paste from the vets, begins with k something. Smells yeasty, and is very oily. He never, ever has any tit bits, if he has a bad flare up, this may sound crawl but it gets him eating immediately, I mash the tinned food with water, into a syringable consistency, gently syringe it down his throat, and within minutes he will start eating again, but he is only aloud a small amount. I think it lines the stomach, and takes away the pain and gets them eating again. It's a pain the ibs but manageable.

 

[emmah1979]

Thank you for your replies. I used the syringe paste the first time she was ill. I think it's a probiotic paste isn't it? I might get some more and keep them for emergencies. I've also used probiotic yoghurt but never quite sure how much or how often to feed her this.

I bought some Vet's Kitchen digestion supplement, which was described as very palatable for dogs but Molly wasn't a fan.

I also try and give her some milk of magnesia when she is ill to settle her stomach, but it can be an emotional experience! She's only little but trying to squirt a syringe of the stuff in her mouth is nigh on impossible and usually ends up with me squirting it all over the kitchen cupboards and myself.

I think the Royal Canin is similar in make up to Arden Grange.

In terms of feeding raw chicken wings to Molly for the first time, do I just give them her and hope that she doesn't swallow them whole or should I chop them up or something?

 

[CAYLA]

In this instance I would go with raw diet, it does seem as karyn k suggests she is struggling with the grains. I have a friend who has a bully type and a few times a months he would act very perculiar, shooting across the room as if someone shot a poker up his back side, would sit and stare at her very odly, would get bouts of loose faeces.
Anyway after talks of scans for brain and blood work ups , I advised her to put him on raw (not for this) mind you she was just interested in putting him on it and I gave her a link from here for a diet sheet.
Mid way through these episodes she did put him on Raw and he never displayed the odd behaviours again (why)? we think he was in a lot of pain with the cereal based diet (he dry diet) and he was feeling horrendous stomach pain.

 

[emmah1979]

I forgot to add that it's Arden Grange Sensitive that she's fed, which is wheat and grain free, so I don't think this can be the issue.

 

[grey dawn]

have you tried tined chappie thats what a lot of the police dog handlers used to use on the german shepherd dogs who had sensitive tums

 

[emmah1979]

have you tried tined chappie thats what a lot of the police dog handlers used to use on the german shepherd dogs who had sensitive tums

Yes, tried Chappie but that didn't make any difference.